Serena (MP3 CD)

Related Editions

September 2009 Indie Next List

“Macbeth moves to the Depression-era Great Smoky Mountains in the finest novel yet by Ron Rash. Ambitious newlywed timber moguls George and Serena Pemberton ravage the mountain landscape while savaging their competitors and fiercely resisting allies of the budding conservation movement. Filled with Shakespearean levels of deception, cruelty, and retribution (mountain-style), Serena speaks to current times with its portrait of modern business greed colliding with a very old land and its inhabitants.”
— John Grooms, Park Road Books, Charlotte, NC

October 2008 Indie Next List

“Buckle your seatbelts, folks, you are in for an amazing ride. Set in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina during the Depression, this incredible novel is about love, greed, revenge, and survival -- a story told in epic proportions, complete with a Greek chorus of lumberjacks.”
— Kathryn Fabiani, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, CT

October 2008 Indie Next List

“Buckle your seatbelts, folks, you are in for an amazing ride. Set in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina during the Depression, this incredible novel is about love, greed, revenge, and survival -- a story told in epic proportions, complete with a Greek chorus of lumberjacks.”
— Kathryn Fabiani, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, CT

Description

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive in North Carolina to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any worker, overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness.

Together Serena and George ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of their favor. But when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out on her own to kill the son George had without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking finale.